Guest AuthorAs Donald Trump moves ever closer to snagging the GOP nomination for U.S. president, he will probably ask for – and receive – a high level of Secret Service protection. He may well need it. As the weeks pass, the political atmosphere is heating up to the point where “ugly” no longer describes what’s going on.
Trump’s fans are many, and well may usher him into the White House. But the fact remains that millions of Americans – including large chunks of his own party – dislike Trump. Even more disturbing, many of them fear him. He epitomizes the electricity that a rich, unafraid, bombastic, observant taker of the peoples’ pulse can generate, especially when most or much of the nation’s news media help out by declaring, “This guy means high ratings. So let’s give him nonstop coverage.”
Many of Trump’s threats – real or implied – are short on specifics. But he promises to attack and vanquish any power – foreign or domestic – that may keep the U.S.A. from returning to the greatness that Trump says we once knew. Once he’s in office, his weapons will range from formidable to apocalyptic.
At one time a president could not declare war without the consent of Congress. That restriction went by the boards about 1950 and has not reappeared. Today the occupant of the Oval Office can press a button or make a phone call that, without seasoned or reasoned judgment beforehand, can send us all from here to eternity.
I would guess that to forestall that likelihood – beginning a year from now – many residents of our troubled land would gladly terminate Donald Trump’s very existence. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. The daily news confirms two sobering truths: (1) our nation is crawling with nutcases, many of them disguised as sober, law-abiding citizens, and (2) these sociopathic lunatics have virtually unlimited access to firearms and explosives, plus instructions on how to use them.
After his inauguration (or even today), an attempt on Trump’s life – whether or not successful – could plunge our people and our splintered parties into an internecine warfare that would make today’s political sniping look like a lovefest. I doubt if most Trump supporters are deranged. Instead they are gripped by anger and frustrations too deep to be plumbed. These Trumpeters believe and hope that Donald can lead them to a better life. If he should be suddenly struck down, may God help America.
In the dismal possibility I’ve sketched, where lies hope that our next president – whether Trump or someone else – will be safe from bodily harm? Some comfort may come from the fact that Barack Obama – who may be loathed just as much as Trump – has survived more than seven long years in the White House.
Surrounded by the Secret Service, as well as by other agencies and safeguards that you and I may never know about, Obama has so far stayed alive while fulfilling a role that for sheer danger has seldom if ever been equalled in U.S. history: to be black and president.
If he’s elected, will Donald Trump – with his immense wealth, his arrogance, his professed scorn for Hispanics, Muslims, the disabled and U.S. prisoners-of-war – be as inviting a target as Obama has been for the past seven-plus years? I hope not. Our citizenry should support all reasonable measures that may have to be taken to protect Trump, or any other president. I want to believe that Obama’s survival and what his protectors have learned about how to keep him safe will be applied smoothly and usefully into the administrations that follow him. This would be Obama’s gift to Trump.
I’m writing this the day after Super Tuesday, as Trump moves closer to the White House and the demolition of the Republican Party. Henceforth, comparisons of Obama and Trump are inevitable. Whether or not Obama has been a great president, he has brought to the Oval Office a level of intelligence, dignity, decency, humor, restraint, courage and persistence that the American presidency has often lacked. He has been a class act.
I fear Trump will be a trash act. If the White House is a china shop, Trump will be a bull. In the household of nations, Trump promises to be the elephant in the parlor. Whatever happens, as Trump leads us back to greatness we will all be asked to sing a new anthem: “Donald uber alles! (above all else.)”
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For the past 20 years Bob Driver’s column “The Driver’s Seat” has appeared in the Tampa Bay area newspapers. Column courtesy of Florida Context.
